


bayet

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: OTP: I am doing this for myself (Mehrunissa / Padmavati fics, Padmaavat) [1]
Category: Padmaavat (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Golden Girls AU, Homecoming, Oneshot, Pre-Relationship, you have to squint to see it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 12:22:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20309428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: Padmavati sees Singhal again after seven years.Set in Avani's Golden Girls AU, where Padmavati, Mehrunissa, and Nagmati escaped into exile after Mewar falls.Title means "home" in Arabic.





	bayet

When last in Singhal, Padmavati was a girl. Now, nearly seven years later, she has been a wife, a widow, and a war-exile. For all that she fancied herself grown, she was truly not much more than a child then, and it is only now, after having been reduced to nothing, that she has become a woman of her own wits and wisdom. 

Still, when the conch shells blow to signal that the island has been sighted, Padmavati collapses to her knees on the deck and weeps like a child. _ Home_, her heart murmurs. “Home,” she whispers. 

She has dreamed of this moment for years, ever since Mewar fell (and even before that, if she is honest with herself). But there was Khilji to contend with, and the contentious Rajput neighbors who were content to do nothing while Khilji approached, but would have just as happily turned over the three widow queens. Learning how to live as commoners in exile, and providing refuge for the women fleeing Khilji’s harems and palaces. Then the slow, arduous journey of reaching the shore and then crossing the sea, and the even more difficult task of convincing Nagmati that such a trip was at all worthwhile. 

* * *

“_A_ _fool’s task,” Nagmati had sniffed. “Once a woman leaves her father’s house, it ceases to be her home at all, and to return is the height of shame. Just because we have broken all the rules does not mean others will. Do you think your father will welcome a daughter who did not die with her husband when she should have?”_

_ Sharp words as always from Nagmati, but not cruel – never cruel. Still, the force of them had caused Padmavati to sag, as doubts began to rise like spires in her mind. _

_ But before she could reply, Mehru, sweet Mehru, had spoken. “I know I would give anything to see my father again. Even if it was only so that he could look upon me with shame.” _

_ Her voice had quavered only a bit, before she spoke again and with more strength. “I would that Padmavati know such joy again and I would come with her – if she would have me.” _

_ Mehru’s eyes became downcast when she said the last bit, and mindlessly Padmavati had taken her hand. “Of course you would come with me,” she said, dismay filling her at the prospect of going anywhere without Mehru – and then starting at herself. She would miss Mehru in any case, when they have been by each other’s sides almost constantly since they first fled into exile four years ago; but why did the prospect strike such a chord of pain in her? _

_ Mehru squeezed her hand back, stroking a thumb across her knuckles before pulling back. Nagmati had watched them carefully, almost – knowingly? – before sighing and turning away. “We’ve secured a steady stream of coin between the three of us in the last few years. Perhaps, if we are careful, we can amass a sum large enough to buy us passage across the sea. But it will take months, if not another year or so.” _

_ “I will help,” Mehru pledged right away, and giggled softly when Nagmati glanced askance at her. “I have learned a skill or two in the last few years. Anything I can do to increase our income, I will – and whatever else I can’t do, you can teach me.” _

_ Padmavati felt warmed by Mehru’s determination to secure this for her, especially when she knew how hard her sister queen could be on the former empress. No one had ever been so willing to give such a gift to her, not even her husband. If she became misty-eyed at the prospect, she told herself it was only at the thought that she might finally see home again. _

* * *

Now she sees the palace again, snaking along the coastline, and the hills where she knows the caves are, and the forests flung across the island, the trees where she would run with sure-footed grace. _ Home_, she knows, and the very blood in her veins thrills to it. 

A hand on her shoulder, and Padmavati turns to see Mehrunissa smiling at her. Mehru understands, she who lost sanctuary after sanctuary, and her joy for Padmavati is so real, so genuine, so _ pure _ that Padmavati again thinks _ Home _ and is startled to find that it is also true. Home is Singhal, with its wildness and verdure and warmth, and somewhere along the way, home has also become Mehru, with her tinkling laughter and her ability to extend a hand to anyone and her essential artlessness, even after all that she has seen. It feels undeniably _ right _ to stand here, with home before her and home beside her, and just as _ right _ to slip her fingers through the spaces between Mehru’s own.


End file.
